Of Course ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 7 Was HBO’s Most-Watched Premiere

I don’t want to alarm you, but Game of Thrones is a popular television series. People were pretty jazzed about Season 7’s premiere after production delayed new episodes to summer, and HBO reaped all the ratings benefit with a dragon-sized audience of over ten million viewers; its most ever.

HBO made sure to put a rush on viewership tallies for Sunday’s Season 7 premiere, which brought in 10.1 million live-viewers, jumping to 16.1 million with streaming views. Previously, live-plus-same day telecasts for the series reached 8.9 million viewers with Season 6’s finale (via The Hollywood Reporter).

By contrast, the premieres of Seasons 5 and 6 averaged around eight million live viewers apiece, giving Season 7 a 27% spike. One can only wonder if the summer delay increased anticipation (Season 6 also had the Jon Snow cliffhanger to answer), and perhaps how the eighth and final season will fare if indeed production pushes the premiere to 2019.

Season 6 also averaged 25.7 million viewers per episode across all platforms and viewing times; the most-watched HBO season of any series. Variety notes that “Dragonstone” broke the show’s all-time tweet record with 2.4 million during the episode, 7% of which belonged to Ed Sheeran’s cameo.

We’ll see if the same blockbuster ratings hold across all seven episodes, but was Game of Thrones Season 7’s opener worth the hype? Read our review and watch the latest trailer below: